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Talk:Local Strategic Partnerships - UK government consultation, December 2005
Local Strategic Partnerships: Shaping their future Sample Consultation response Consultation Response from Phil Green former Co-ordinator, Quality of Life in and around Maidstone (QLM) a group arising out of Local Agenda 21 and former member of Maidstone's Local Strategic Partnership, representing QLM General comments Priority should be given to A. speeding up the process by which sustainable development in its widest sense is made part of the everyday workings of LSPs B. LSPs becoming properly accountable and relevant to local citizens, communties and community groups, and involving the widest possible number ::A. Consideration should be given to renaming LSPs Local Sustainability Partnerships (Sustainability being intrinsically strategic), or alternatively Local Strategic and Sustainability Partnerships. Whilst the move to (rename) Sustainable Community Strategies is welcome, it is the day to day workings of the underlying partnerships which need to be infused with concerns for sustainability (not just some rarely used bits of paper). ::B. Legislative foundation may help, and moves to make what the LSP does more evidence based are welcome. The evidence base, which should be an essential requirement, and an essential part of accountability to citizens, should be primarily about outcomes (rather than performance) e. g. Quality of Life indicators which have resonance with local populations and which can be put into wider area and global context. Links with wider areas Unitary authorities should become the norm. Two tier structures are basically inimical to sustainability. Accountability to Citizens This needs to be taken much more seriously. There should be some sort of minimum acceptable atandard, which might include for example an, at least annual, open meeting with the local community, and regular and clear reference, within constant dialgoue through a variety of communications, to the evidence base / outcomes / Quality of Life indicators. Governance arrangements These need to be informed by the full range of possibilities for Participatory democracy as well as representative democracy. Much more support needs to be given to participatory democracy so that its advantages can become much more apparent and established alongside those of representative democracy. Specifically there is a need for proper inclusion of those who are genuinely passionate about sustainability and local sustainability or quality of life issues (which may be a much wider set of stakeholders than just a few token environment group representatives). Governance arrangements need to include specifically, definitely and unequivocally, that such stakeholders can properly influence the day to day agenda and actions of such partnerships, not just their aspirations, etc (so that they're not left with the feeling of just being there for decoration). Capacity issues This follows on from the previous comment. Specifically there is a need for at least some real material support for those who are genuinely passionate about A. sustainability and local sustainability or quality of life issues B. genuine community involvement via participatory democracy :A. does not seem likely via the limited investment and possibly top down activities resulting from Community Action 2020. Each LSP area should have a forum to articulate, develop and at least begin to resource (or at least advocate resourcing) local action for sustainability. This is a role that could be fulfilled by Local Agenda 21 type groups as long as these were supported by at least some real resources. Without the push factor from the inclusion and proper involvement of stakeholders passionate about sustainabiltiy it simply won't be delivered quickly enough. Just one example of this is our collective response to climate change. As a consequence government (maybe the whole of it, but at least local government) will slide further into disrepute.